Depot:Slowind Festival

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Festival Slowind

Prešernov trg 1, SI-1000 Ljubljana

http://www.slowind.org

Phone386 (0) 41 371 370

Organised bySlowind Music Society

Frequencyannual

Festival dates25.11.2017 - 1.12.2017

Since 1999 the Slowind Music Society, which consists of the members of the Slowind Quintet, has been organising the Slowind Festival and have since established it as one of the main events that brings contemporary works of Slovene and international composers to the forefront of the Ljubljana music stages.

The annual festival features mostly chamber and electro-acoustic works by composers such as E. Carter, V. Globokar, W. Rihm, E. Varèse, K. Stockhausen, L. Berio as well as new works by young Slovene composers. Each year the festival offers a variety of concerts exploring a chosen theme as well as workshops and pre-concert discussions with composers and lectures by music experts. The concert repertoire is performed by different Slovene and international musicians as well as the Slowind Quintet. Guest musicians featured at the festival include mezzo-soprano Barbara Jernejčič Fürst, hornist Andrej Žust, the Ensemble Aleph, flautist Robert Aitken, and harpist Coline-Marie Orliac.

Background

The Slowind Quintet is made up of soloists of the Slovene Philharmonic: flautist Aleš Kacjan, oboist Matej Šarc, clarinettist Jurij Jenko, bassoonist Paolo Calligaris, and hornist Metod Tomac. The ensemble was initially established as a trio in 1987 by Aleš Kacjan, Jurij Jenko, and Zoran Mitev, who came together because of the National Musicians Competition of Yugoslavia, where they won first prize. The trio performed at festivals and events in Slovenia and abroad, among others at the Paris fair Musicora and the International Summer Festival in Dubrovnik. The ensemble expanded into a wind quintet in 1994 with the intention of performing 20th-century and rare or seldom–performed contemporary music on Slovene stages.

The annual Slowind Festival was initiated with the intention of commissioning new compositions from Slovene and international composers for the wind quintet as well as presenting well-known and seldom performed compositions from the 20th-century chamber music repertoire. This repertoire is performed at the festival with many renowned guest musicians on the stage of the Slovene Philharmonic. For their work to date, Slowind Quartet have received the Župančič Award in 1999 and the Prešeren Foundation Award in 2003.

International participation

The Slowind Festival features many international musicians, who perform contemporary pieces together with the Slowind Quintet. The festival concerts bring to Ljubljana the performances of distinguished international chamber ensembles including Accroche Note, Ensemble Aleph, the ensemble SurPlus, as well as musicians such as percussionist Matthias Wüsch, violinist and conductor Arvid Engegård, oboist Heinz Hollinger, and trombonist Ivo Nilsson. The featured contemporary programme, which also includes works such as Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire and Xenakiss' Phlegra, is prepared and conceptualised in collaboration with international conductors and composers. The artists that collaborated with the Slowind Quintet in the festival's artistic direction include James Freeman and Jürg Wyttenbach.

The quintet also took part in the European Capital of Culture Maribor 2012 with the concert Spectre of Sounds featuring works by E. Carter and C. Nielsen among others.

Repertoire

The festival's repertoire includes commissioned new works written for the ensemble in its present form as well as many chamber works which feature wind instruments in a leading role. The programme is therefore only in part tailored to the wind quintet and is mostly focused on important 20th-century chamber works. A number of contemporary Slovene and foreign composers have thus dedicated works to the Slowind Quintet including Larisa Vrhunc, Vinko Globokar, Lojze Lebič, Nina Šenk, Neville Hall, Volker Staub, Ivo Nilsson, and Martin Smolka. The festival's programme includes works by composers such as G. Mahler, A. Schoenberg, G. Scelsi, G. Crumb, E. Varese, L. Berio and M. Kagel. Another unique element of the festival are performances of compositions featuring winds with other instruments such as the accordion, the Latvian kokle, and different percussion instruments.

See also

• Slowind Quintet

External links

• Slowind Quintet website